Cyber-Warfare: The North Korean response

We offer the following from the 11 October 2012 (we won't bother to translate into juche-time) Minju Joson, a North Korean government newspaper, without editorial comment:

The United States Raised the Curtain on a Cyber Armament Race

"The United States is going into full swing on cyber armament development lately. According to news reports, the US Air Force command declared the opening of bids for procurement of harmful programs containing malignant viruses for the purpose of disrupting and destroying enemy computer networks and control centers. The notice on the bidding emphasizes the US Air Force's quest for capabilities to infect and disable enemy work systems, servers, and other network structures by cyberattacks and establish systems of temporary cyberspace control, and it includes the development of programs for inflicting preemptive strikes against an enemy. The US Department of Defense expressed its willingness to spend $10 million in the initial stages of plan implementation.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency declared the opening of bids for the development of surveillance programs to monitor the state of security of enemy military infrastructure targets countering US cyber attacks. Some $110 million will reportedly be spent on the development of those programs.

Military experts see this plan announced by the United States as a first step in a cyber armament development race.

Until now, the United States has categorically denied its cyber attack weapon development, saying US military action on the cyber front will be strictly of a defensive nature.

However, in reality, the United States has been actively pursuing cyber attack weapon development projects, while overtly spurring cyber warfare preparations.

Late last year, the US Congress approved cyber attack weapon development by the United States Cyber Command and allocated huge amounts of money to this project.

According to what US media reported, the US Department of Defense has already started full-scale development of cyber attack weapons that can be used in a real war. This program, codenamed "PLAN-X," calls for the development of digital maps showing the locations of tens of billions of computers worldwide, let alone the disablement of enemy military communications and radar. It is an initiative for rendering enemy military computers useless all at once in case of an emergency.

Not only munitions companies but also private universities and even electronic game device makers will reportedly participate in this cyber attack weapon development, which will be handled by the US Department of Defense at the cost of more than $1 billion over five years.

In short, the United States is seeing the Internet space as a new military arena and seeking to gain hegemony in this area.

As known, malignant viruses are spreading widely through computer networks worldwide today, leading to destruction and leakage of numerous classified data and paralyzing electronic work systems.

The problem is that the United States and other Western countries are exploiting this phenomenon as an excuse for more blatant intelligence warfare, interference in internal affairs, and aggression maneuvers against other countries.

Last year, when damage was reported in a cyber attack on the United States, the US Department of Defense automatically blamed it on an outside cyber attack and came out actively advocating the need for cyber armament development as a counter. It went so far as to announce something called "cyber strategy" that treats a cyber attack launched from outside as an act of war and calls for a reprisal involving use of force.

Although, from a technical standpoint, it is possible to identify the outside network address launching a cyber attack, it is difficult to find out who is responsible for the attack launched from computers, experts say. As long as the attacker's identity is not accurately established, a military reprisal measure by anyone cannot be justified.

Nevertheless, the United States is blabbering that an outside cyber attack will automatically constitute a "threat," which is considered an "act of war" that requires a reprisal at tack, and its purpose lies in the justification of its cyber armament development and its bid to launch preemptive strikes at any given time against countries it does not like by imposing cyber attack blames.

Now, the United States continues to perpetrate cyberterrorism crimes against anti-imperialist, pro-independence countries by throwing allegations against other countries under the pretext of so-called "national security."

In an article exposing and denouncing the United States' cyber warfare maneuvers against Cuba, the country's newspaper Granma divulged that the United States secretly introduced satellite antennas and other equipment into Cuba, installed secret Internet access points, and spread groundless rumors through them, thereby creating social instability and seeking to cause

Cuba to disintegrate from within. The newspaper also divulged that the United States is ratcheting up anti-Cuba maneuvers by mobilizing all schemes by introducing the latest programs into the country, creating a network outside government controls, and establishing a system of sending and receiving digital documents.

It is an already well-known fact that the United States developed a virus named "Stuxnet" to scuttle Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and sabotaged normal nuclear activities by launching cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Because of the United States' such cyberterrorism crimes, information technology means, which should otherwise be used to contribute to socio-economic progress and humankind's civilization development, are exploited for "intelligence warfare," aggravating confrontation and friction among countries.

Currently, there is no international legal framework to monitor and control cybercrimes and provide fair and accurate assessments of cybercrimes. That is why countries such as Russia are calling for the creation of a new protocol assuming the nature of international law against cybercrimes.

Foreign media expressing strong concern over the United States' increasingly intensifying cyber armament development are sounding alarm bells, saying, "The United States has effectively raised the curtain on a cyber armament race itself. The consequences of such action cannot be anticipated."

Now, many countries around the world are denouncing the United States as the main cybercrime culprit and strongly urging a ban on the development and use of cyber weapons.”

Comments

roger

November 12, 2012 3:15 PM

Very interesting. DPRK also just published a similar article " Main Culprit of Destructive Report Propaganda" http://www.rodong.rep.kp/InterEn/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2... two seem to indicate a begrudging respect for American technical prowess. Takes a proganda-meister to recognize one...And as for the call for a legal regime, it's interesting that DPRK invokes Russia's name in calling for a legal framework.

Agree. This indicates DPRK has received the message that cyber capabilities are important, DPRK is taking note of them. But rather than DPRK being deterred by these cyber-capabilities, they are almost inspired to up their game. DPRK offers classic blame-transferrence justifications in this statement: “The United States has effectively raised the curtain on a cyber armament race itself. The consequences of such action cannot be anticipated.”But it's something that has their attention. This bears continued watching.